In the last few days articles have been appearing in the corporate media detailing methane releases in the Arctic with the East Siberian Arctic shelf which is close to many of our hearts and minds due to it’s shallowness and vulnerability to destabilisation of the carbon and methane clathrate reserves reported on by Dr Natalia Shakova and her colleague Dr Igor Semiletov and by the worlds leading expert Dr Peter Wadhams.
“There are large uncertainties about tipping points that may be ahead of us, but for some systems, especially biological evidence in the oceans, we have already evidence that the tipping point has been passed.”
“Professor Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at the University of Cambridge, said the report had failed to mention the “very serious threat” of methane rising from the seabed of the Arctic continental shelf as its permafrost thaws, potentially contributing large amounts of extra greenhouse gas.”
Professor McPherson and I covered “Tipping Points” in the August episode our NBL interview with Andrew Glikson from The Australian National University
I take one exception with this paragraph in The Telegraph article ; “The planet has warmed to 1C above pre-industrial temperatures, and around 90 per cent of that excess heat has been absorbed by the oceans, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said.” That is simply not true and down plays the severity of the crisis in real time. The IPCC is playing fast and loose with baseline dates that have beed covered on this blog previously and by my esteemed colleague Sam Carana from The Arctic News Blog who had us at 1.73C above the 1750 baseline in April 2018
“Unveiling the latest report in Monaco on Wednesday, panel-member Valerie Masson-Delmotte, said: “Climate change is already irreversible due to the heat uptake in the ocean.”
“We can’t go back, whatever we do with our emissions.”
“According to the new forecasts, approximately 70 per cent of the world’s permafrost will thaw if emissions continue to rise. This in turn could free up “tens to hundreds of billions of tonnes” of CO2 and methane into the atmosphere, further heating the planet.”
“Scientists in Siberia have discovered an area of sea that is “boiling” with methane, with bubbles that can be scooped from the water with buckets. Researchers on an expedition to the East Siberian Sea said the “methane fountain” was unlike anything they had seen before, with concentrations of the gas in the region to be six to seven times higher than the global average.”
The primary significance of this response form Igor Semiletov saying the discharges were “unlike anything they had seen before” is a very, very disturbing development. Very few scientist have his level of field research.
“The team, led by Igor Semiletov, from Tomsk Polytechnic University in Russia, traveled to an area of the Eastern Arctic previously known to produce methane fountains. They were studying the environmental consequences of permafrost thawing beneath the ocean.”
For those of us researchers following the seminal work of Dr’s Natalia Shakova and Igor Semiletov this latest data whilst not being surprising is terrifying in it’s implications.
Have a listen to this seminal presentation from DR Shakova;
Finally this sailor will give you an indication of how large there methane plumes can be;
“A TRAWLER found at the bottom of the North Sea may have sunk after being trapped in a giant gas bubble.”
“Scientists from the University of Sunderland discovered the fishing boat off Aberdeen, 450ft below the surface, on a patch of sea bed known as Witch’s Hole. They think the crew were the victims of a rare and terrifying phenomenon.”
“Methane gas bubbling up from the seabed reduces the density of water to a point where a trawler can no longer float, said Alan Judd, a marine geologist who led the investigation. He said: “Any ship caught above would sink as if it were in a lift shaft. No trace of the vessel or its crew would remain. Even those who jumped overboard in lifejackets would sink.”
Giant methane gas bubble ‘sank trawler’
Good luck everyone.
I'm an anti-imperialist, environmental activist and blue ocean sailor, who is passionate about the earth and all it's inhabitants without favour. Brace for imminent impact as we bare witness to the non-linear unraveling of the biosphere and habitability disappearing for most if not all complex life on the only habitable planet we know of. To quote President Niinistö in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’. Folks we have lost the Arctic.
Kevin Hester 
Great summary my friend!
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We humans must realize that we are in natures playground ,”It’s not that nature is malicious, it’s that nature just doesn’t care
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Distorted Jet Stream as it was described recently elsewhere has just stuck in my head. Disrupted is good, too, I guess, but the former seems to have impacted my brain a little more severely. How about Mutant Jet Stream? Is that appropriate?
Watching weather shifting over the Northern Pacific… the satellite maps and the Blob of Ocean Heat…oh my.
44South: Prepping is only for the wealthy and their well-stocked bunkers. Most of us around here are unable to afford much more than the normal winter prep one does living in mountains that (used to) get down into the -35’C/-35’F. Firewood, stock of candles and matches along with lantern fuel and batteries with a couple of no-battery flashlights. Add a couple of 5 gal glass water bottles in the house, some camp stove fuel and gas for a generator if you have one. Maybe that crazy armed christo-cult that owns the town of Marble up north of me about 40 miles (by the Canadian border) has tunnels full of prepper stuff but mostly it just doesn’t happen with folks barely paying the bills every month. I think the majority of people around here have enough for a week or maybe two, but then severe shortages will start hitting. Add in the people living on Big Pharma drugs and insulin that is delivered weekly or monthly at best, I know quite a few older folks that live from week to week with their shipped insulin. Some younger, too, for that matter.
There will be a lot of very hungry people within days of the ending of imported food by truck or train into this area. I know few that actually have food supplies. Within 2-3 weeks after refrigeration stops I expect there won’t be a cow, goat, deer, squirrel, moose, or elk easily hunted in this county. Not when you have to walk everywhere (horses are going to die out the first winter without trucked-in fodder).
Every dead civilization I’ve read about, and that history is interesting if not necessarily pleasant, have always had anthropologists finding human bones cracked for the marrow in an old refuse pile or firepit… When all there is to eat is the neighbor, you eat the neighbors you dislike first??? Yeah, I know, I’m getting more and more cynical…
And it’s looking like the Methane monster is starting to roar, doesn’t it? That should increase the acceleration rate of every negative consequence we talk about on your site, Kevin. Everything you’ve posted spikes upwards into more positive feedback which feeds even more methane leakage…which make the Blob get warmer and the storms get weirder and who the hell knows, eh?
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21October
Absolutely pounded on the roof last night again about 2am, a thousand ball-peen hammers above my head with large heavy drops coming in sheets. Rain due through the week but with this much going on in the Arctic and ocean; by then the predictions will probably have changed. Been raining for days now but it looks like no cold winter temps heading in to make snow at my elevation. Maybe on the peaks.
I’m guessing that The Blob is shifting the Bering storms temperatures upwards… Used to be that Halloween always had snow on the ground for the trick or treat kids. This was noticeably changed 20-25 years ago by those paying attention in these mountains.
Fresh snow on the ski hill cams this morning down to the Lodge level where yesterday it was dirt. Water running off the roof out the windows. It’s trying to turn into winter.
Watch a sunset, Kevin, or maybe a sunrise. Don’t forget to breathe in and out.
sealintheSelkirks
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I thank you for your service to the world welfare. I think it’s time to punish the assults on mother earth by jail time for CEOs of companieis that abuse. It’s the only way.
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I’d heard many years ago that methane releases may have been the cause of otherwise unexplained lost ships (and planes) in the bermuda triangle where ancient underwater deposits of organic material exist. Hmmm.
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Yeah It’s a logical conclusion when there aren’t many other options.
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But wait. There’s always more;
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/vast-methane-plumes-seen-in-arctic-ocean-as-sea-ice-retreats-6276278.html?fbclid=IwAR3V4PMxAdqXVgs-6yCG5R3MTjlxh-XSg2CJTBwAo-HMYnwXOCpPX8W433M
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You do realize what using the term ‘Good Luck’ actually means in this context, don’t you Kevin? With what we are seeing happening around the world and what we all suspect is about to happen…that could easily be translated into…well, there ain’t gonna be much good luck involved I would imagine. Over the precipice we are. At least not what I’d consider good luck. This is flipping scary, dude.
Too much information coming out every damn day. All of it overwhelmingly depressing. I read somewhere a while back about climatologists and other science folk going to therapy about how to talk to their kids about what their work is telling them…no good answers that anybody wants to hear I’m sure.
Oh hey, The Blob is back off my coast. Not good news. It was very bad over on the coast last time, in Puget and the outside ocean. Sea life died, all kinds, birds, up the food chain over the entire North Coast up into Alaska. Another hammer slams the ocean…The last time, 2014, it didn’t snow at my elevation. A couple of dustings is all, and the local hill barely opened very late with bare slopes and closed six weeks later with zero snowpack. I never went up, unused season pass. Far too dangerous and they shouldn’t have opened at all.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2219501-return-of-warm-water-blob-in-the-pacific-threatens-marine-life/
It is very bad for the surviving forest when the dryer side of this state doesn’t get much winter moisture snowpack. Not that winter snowpack lasts into Spring anymore…but we’ll take what we can get.
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I enjoyed the colorful photos you posted. Both having the blue at the bottom turning to angry red that catches the eye as it goes up into the sky. An intentional metaphor in a picture perhaps?
And the IPCC has always played fast and loose with any subject that made some of its members ‘uncomfortable.’ So much left out, so much science not ‘agreed to’ by the politicians and just deleted from the rough draft reports.
And I really, REALLY wish these freaking people on all these panels etc etc would quit using that totally inappropriate term invented by that W bush political hack ‘climate change.’ I get a bad taste in my mouth every time I hear or see it! If you cut off your toe you didn’t just stub it a little.
A satellite earth/heat (infra-red?) map popped up the other day showing the Arctic at 4C from ‘Berkeley Earth’ but I don’t have the link, just a copy. I think it also originally had a NOAA tag on it… Oh, and that is 4’C rise since 1960 not the 1700s…oh darn.
Continue to do something fun every day, Kevin and others reading these words.
sealintheSelkirks
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Yeah! That’s what I keep saying. If masses r hollering about the symptom we r truly doomed n f’d. Ty
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And this morning Hunziker throws another freaking kick to our collective heads. This one is making my brain ache…
Methane SOS
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/10/11/methane-sos/
sealintheSelkirks
(it was 22’F/15’C this morning)
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More on this topic via The Big Wobble;
https://www.thebigwobble.org/2019/10/if-small-fraction-of-arctic-sea-floor.html?fbclid=IwAR3Fce_5OPRPRCC3689xz0ggOg_emvNwwmRlitDorMl1Orl_3fYMGnPJhuo
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The problem is New Zealand is having one of the slowest springs in many years. Not the sort of thing you associate with a warning planet… unless you understand “climate chaos”.
And not one of the local government mayoral candidates even mentioned climate in their promotional blurb for the coming election.
I responded by feeding the voting papers into the log fire.
Good luck? I think prepping tops wishing, though both will likely prove futile. That said I have been working on erecting a recycled tunnel house today.
Thinking of planting sweet corn and pumpkins as the first crop, both still hard to grow down here as yet.
How many more happy harvest days to come?
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Our recent guest on Nature Bats Last has just covered the methane risk
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/10/11/methane-sos/
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Want more evidence?
http://americablog.com/2014/04/perp-greatest-mass-extinction-earth-identified-methane.html?fbclid=IwAR38bDsLQ1CpwR-NE6EICvdcK6096ywy4F9MsUBWk28l1eMkP5HDLbmULWg
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Dead people walking.
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Here’s the latest peer reviewed science from Shakova, Semiletov et al
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3263/9/6/251/htm?fbclid=IwAR3lpoCItdFJ76b9y4ZqC8fEcAWyq5Ecvp9hfrMfBraMtHL2_-j6cIW8iXE
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And just for a touch of eyebrow-raising irony a little humor, I just had to post this. In the capital of this ‘exceptional’ country life is truly all about profit and power…and how the facade looks in the neighborhood. I couldn’t help it, I laughed reading this. Is it me or am I getting a warped sense of humor?
sealintheSelkirks
Grappling with the climate crisis, DC’s preservation board rejects front-facing solar panels
https://ggwash.org/view/74166/dc-preservation-hprb-denies-front-facing-solar-panels-takoma-climate-crisis
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#Dystopiaisnow !!!!!!
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No doubt, Kevin! After I read the article I was sitting there thinking about how the HELL these people can justify anything they are making decisions on. I mean, it’s not like it’ll make any damn difference at this point, ya know? That coastline is going to be underwater no matter how many solar panels ‘destroy’ the look of the old buildings…and how good are those buildings going to look underwater anyway? It’s just freaking insane thinking, like they have compartmentalized their thinking so they don’t have to think of what the science is actually saying is ahead of them.
I just couldn’t wrap my head around it, and I still can’t! It’s like when I try to ‘put myself in their shoes’ I run into a place in my mind that needs to be broken to be able to think that way. Is this one of those ‘in the land of the insane’ analogy?
Wow. Just wow.
Nice article you added. Like Sheila down in Oregon who hasn’t said much lately, I should just go smoke a big fat bowl after reading it!
Then I went to a link on the page about the ‘Earth Stopped Getting Greener 20 years ago’ article. Plant growth has finally hit its CO2 limit! The anti-science crowd has been using CO2 as plant food for decades…and so this shows that argument is also bogus.
Big sigh.
Not changing the subject…sorta shifting it in another connected kind of way… I read into Wm. H. Kotke 1993 book last night, Chapter 3 Soil: The Basis of Life which has a sub-chapter list ranging from Organic Rights to Process of Soil Collapse, Exhaustion, Compaction, Erosion, Abuse by Grazing, Irrigation Projects…oh my my brain was busy correlating all of it. Talk about our being over the freaking edge of the climate/survival cliff!!! And I blew right on through into Chapter 4 ‘The Forest’ with sub-headings on ‘How Forests went down, Deforestation following Empires, Poison air & rain, Vanishing Tropical Rainforest, Planetary Greenhouse, and Ozone. Then I fell asleep on the couch until 6am… woke up to rain hitting the windows and to the sense my reading made to my waking mind.
This is a really good book, very concise and explanatory without being condescending. It’s not a novel so I’m not blowing through it but taking time to ponder while I’m reading. Shifting things around in my mind. This guy had one HELL of a picture in his head about where we were headed. And he documents everything he’s saying step by step.
A subtitle to the book on the chapter list page starts with “The History of Disintegration” which is absolutely appropriate. From the earliest dawn of agriculture and Ethiopian Empire to present.
I’ll be reading Chapter 5 ‘The Phantom Agriculture’ and #6 ‘The Exhaustion of the Industrial Empire’ next. You can probably imagine what the sub-chapters are in them…
Time to heat more water for tea. Maybe grab that cannabis bowl, too, for that matter, go outside and watch it rain for a bit, bundle up in coat and hat, sip hot tea and smoke some stinky homegrown from my garden. Do something fun today, Kevin!
sealintheSelkirks
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“Small Temperature Bumps Can Cause Big Arctic Methane Burps”
“Warming can encourage the growth of microbes in permafrost that produce more greenhouse gases”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/small-temperature-bumps-can-cause-big-arctic-methane-burps/?fbclid=IwAR2gjpm1FaPP-Bct3_LmApz7l4eI16U3IQzhaPbus_N2fmK7DOHuZEI10LU
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Feedback loop after feedback loop.
I never wanted to be right about this.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2220549-thawing-permafrost-has-turned-the-arctic-into-a-carbon-emitter/?utm_medium=SOC&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR2pEtH9nJfk4-9nKEFjDZX8Tnj49TXzpPCFMdbl6UIitaLIZkvMLzapYrw#Echobox=1571673437
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Kevin, you’ve been expecting this, or something like this, just as I have. Your writing and posting showed this to anybody that was paying attention. And you knew it was bound to happen sooner or later…sooner it seems but this has been stretching out for decades while our species pumps ever-more crap into the atmosphere.
It’s like how many beers can you drink before you suddenly realize that you are throwing up? The planet is starting to throw up. It has been for a while but…projectile vomit is so much more real than puking over a toilet. The Arctic becomes projectile vomit? That’s not a picture I want in my head.
I can’t read the article, just the first two short paragraphs and the start of the third. It wants me to subscribe which I can’t afford, but that is enough words. “Across the region as a whole” pretty much tells us that what we fear is becoming reality. Or has become reality. Just how fast is this going to happen is the question now.
I pulled out a dusty article of a secret Pentagon report a few minutes ago that was published 22Feb 2004 from the Observer/UK and summarized in a commondreams.org article (which is what I printed out) titled: “Now the Pentagon Tells Bush: Climate Change Will Destroy Us.” On page 2 it says ‘by 2020 ‘catastrophic’ shortages of water and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war. ‘This is depressing stuff, he said, ‘It is a national security threat that is unique because there is no enemy to point your guns at and we have no control over the threat.’ end quote.
I just re-realized that I filed divorce and had moved here within four months after this article came out. I guess I didn’t think they were kidding?
Collapse was never was going to be ‘clean’ and ‘gentle’ and ‘nice’ though, was it? Not according to history of the smaller collapses our species’ empires have caused across the planet in the last 9,000 years. That reality was always in the back of our minds, too, if we wanted to turn around and look at that darkest part of all this. That area scares the hell out of me as it obviously does you. Never wanted to be right about all this is EXACTLY what I’ve been saying for years to my friends and family, those that actually listened.
Being a Cassandra of bad news has never been a happy place to exist in. Being right is no consolation, either, as we well know. I have family and friends that never talk about what I’ve been reading lately. You probably do, or like me many of those former friends have stepped back out of the picture because they didn’t want to know. Lots of those, eh? Most people do NOT want to know.
Big sigh.
Regards,
sealintheSelkirks
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“Permafrost emits more carbon in winter than plants absorb in summer:”
https://www.vancourier.com/permafrost-emits-more-carbon-in-winter-than-plants-absorb-in-summer-study-1.23984137?fbclid=IwAR03zEYdl0wdGubaszHrwBRgXGYFqTKD5xOJkGFOqWs3svw1AYsBoHaSSvw
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Thawing permafrost turns Arctic from carbon sink into carbon emitter, study finds.
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/melting-permafrost-arctic-carbon-emissions-study-a9166321.html?fbclid=IwAR08q-d8rIrm7nAN5Uf3YG99eEW_4n3M8ViHjYvi9ie3qxXT9R1LmHx4K_Y
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And Hunziker throws another one at us yesterday:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/10/22/xr-co-founder-discusses-climate-emergency/
Ah shit.
sealintheSelkirks
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More evidence;
https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/first-pictures-and-video-of-the-largest-methane-fountain-so-far-discovered-in-the-arctic-ocean/?fbclid=IwAR0s2PJotdfv5rtDgzWlIwePJUF3r_wg3OG_uFCiG0amOvDvaohSaGLevi0
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None of us, not a single one of us wanted to be right about this.
https://theaimn.com/the-methane-gun/
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Here’s two more articles that fit this posting, Kevin:
Warning of ‘Untold Human Suffering,’ Over 11,000 Scientists From Around the World Declare Climate Emergency
“Scientists have a culture of reticence when it comes to making statements like this, but the emergency is rapidly accelerating, and the scientists are very clear: this is an existential emergency.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/05/warning-untold-human-suffering-over-11000-scientists-around-world-declare-climate
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And this one…I’m wondering if the author read Wm. H. Kotke’s 1993 book
because she dang near follows what he wrote in practically the same way. She cites other authors but not him so probably not, but the similarities 26 years later are striking.
An Open Letter to Climate Activists in the Northwoods…and Beyond
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/11/06/an-open-letter-to-climate-activists-in-the-northwoodsand-beyond/
From a talk delivered November 1, 2019. Northern Michigan University Sonderegger Symposium: Anishinaabek: East, South, West, North. Marquette, MI.
“I’m going to cut straight to the point: averting climate change is not going stop the global collapse of the planet as we know it.”
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sealintheSelkirks
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Yeah, I know, Kevin. I have people telling me that this cannot happen, that it just isn’t possible. Or that I’m just too pessimistic. I have family that told me this and they live in a burn zone of NorCal (Mt. Shasta area). It’s truly disheartening but my ex never did want to hear about GHG or the Arctic or anything that I was reading back in the early 90s much less now…and they were her kids so I don’t have much contact with them anymore. And NorCal has been lighting off every year, too…
It was -15’C this morning. Brrrrrr. At least I’m at ‘low’ fire danger, yeah?
All of you are Cassandras. Doesn’t it suck?
sealintheSelkirks
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For a weekend read:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/11/01/our-vanishing-world-insects/
I have never read from this next link’s site but this piece is worth posting for others. A link to extinction by 2026 written a year ago:
https://www.transcend.org/tms/2018/08/human-extinction-by-2026-a-last-ditch-strategy-to-fight-for-human-survival/
a cut & paste of paragraph 6:
“Well, despite the number of elite-controlled intergovernmental processes and corporate scientists paid to promulgate delusion about our timeframe, an increasing number of scientists are now warning that existing and accumulating evidence indicates that human extinction is likely to occur by 2026 (assuming that we can prevent nuclear war and prevent the deployment of 5G in the meantime).”
Happy reading!
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Kevin, weather problems up here are not the extreme burning of California but the Heat Blob off my coast is shoving every storm that aims this way back up into eastern Alaska and then the deformed Jet Stream drops them into eastern Montana and further east into the upper Midwest. Blue sky and sunshine here…roughly -15’C +/- every morning with very hard freezes. Nothing ‘feels’ normal but then we know better, don’t we? By now there should be snow on the ground out the window. It’s green instead.
The local snowboarding hill 49’N barely has a dusting of frozen icy crap on the Peak much less around the bottom of the lifts. Dirt for the most part. Big sigh.
sealintheSelkirks
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“New research says major climate threats to Arctic communities, ecosystems and infrastructure could come much sooner than expected as vast areas of permafrost continue to thaw. ”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/abrupt-arctic-climate-change-study-1.5351019?fbclid=IwAR0i9bsMa42KKeP428R3UVZZJroYNx9TIsxjyJZoNZLCao9q207YdOWlrHU
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Hey Kevin,
This popped up today. I’m not sure what if any effect this could do except to maybe GPS and compasses. I only have the latter…
World Magnetic Model Out-of-Cycle Release
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/world-magnetic-model-out-cycle-release
Earth’s northern magnetic pole is moving quickly away from the Canadian Arctic toward Siberia. This movement has forced NCEI’s scientists to update the World Magnetic Model (WMM) mid-cycle.
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Why is it always ‘COULD’ come sooner? Crap! The link you posted…dang people it’s already affecting just about everything and everywhere! A friend’s son just came down from their home in Alaska (brought the g-kids) and said it was absolutely freaky the changes he’s seen in the last 15 years. He was a bit…scared about it. Then we had a talk that ended up being at least an hour long. Gave him websites to read and ponder. I caught him looking at his kids later with this sad downcast look on his face. Yeah, facts will do that to you sometimes. I don’t like being the bearer of an uncomfortable reality wake-up call but he wanted to know and asked me. I don’t lie about what I’m reading or talk fluffy bunny crap. I guess his mom warned him and he sat down with me anyway.
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It snowed here today, woke up to it. Flakes not just Styrofoam-like ice balls or groppel. I’d actually call it a dusting. Then it started raining lightly about noon. Now it’s foggy as hell outside. Possibly more rain later in the week but no guarantee. Not acting like November winter. Last year my snowboarding hill opened two days ago.
Is it me or is it getting harder for the experts to predict the weather even a couple of days out now? I does seem as if they are less accurate than they used to be…but then the weather was a product of a somewhat stabler climate…or am I imagining that, too?
Radical shit going on in AUS and Cali. Again both of them burn. Every year it gets worse and there is so little allowed in most of the corporate worldwide MSM:
Demands for Bold Climate Action Mount as ‘All But Rainless’ Australia Faces ‘Catastrophic’ Fire Danger
The extreme weather comes as a new report on G20 nations reveals that “Australia is behind [on] climate action in nearly every dimension.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/11/demands-bold-climate-action-mount-all-rainless-australia-faces-catastrophic-fire
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And everywhere else, in both large and small measures, if you are paying attention to the world around you, it should jar you. I guess most people really aren’t, though. Or plain don’t wanna.
Big sigh.
sealintheSelkirks
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Hunziker throws up another on Permafrost…that ain’t so perma if you get the pun…which isn’t freaking funny in the least.
Permafrost Hits a Grim Threshold
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/12/06/permafrost-hits-a-grim-threshold/
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Local weather conditions: It’s freaking raining here instead of snowing, temperature in the 5C+ range during the day and NOT hitting freezing at night (I woke up to rain this morning).
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Does anyone need yet another tipping point ?
https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/the-tipping-point-is-here-it-is-now-top-amazon-scientists-warn/?fbclid=IwAR1fF6GVdSGxMYec_VVFUH0hHhH-oDFj0NsLnMwA7yBOhb9DbvETYV-ol-0
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Here’s a couple more:
Sea Level Rise Is Speeding up Along Most of the U.S. Coast
https://www.ecowatch.com/sea-level-rise-speeding-up
‘A Little Shocking’: Ocean Currents Are Speeding up Significantly, Study Finds
https://www.ecowatch.com/ocean-currents-speeding-up-2645050924.html
There is just too much information coming in from around the world daily to keep up with, much less how the hell does one integrate it all into a coherent picture? Especially when that picture would be a serious snapshot of bad to worse that nobody wants to pay attention to because it would…disturb their way of life.
Irony is heavy today.
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Local weather:
It was just under 10C/50F yesterday under a sun full of beaming warm rays in a soft blue sky. The air was still chill (NOT cold) but that temp was in the shade on the north side of the woodshed. The 8th of February and nothing but a few centimeters of mushy melting snow with icy patches in shady spots under the trees. And mud, can’t forget the mud. There are flying bugs coming out during the day. Flying bugs! Not much more needs to be said, eh?
sealintheSelkirks
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“World has lost battle to stop glaciers melting and sea level rising, UN meteorological chief says. […] The British Antarctic Survey has released its new maps and they are a stark visual depiction of the retreat of ice at our poles. Just as stark is the warning from the secretary general of the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organisation, Professor Petteri Taalas.”
https://news.sky.com/story/world-has-lost-battle-to-stop-glaciers-melting-and-sea-level-rising-un-meteorological-chief-says-12898899
The battle is lost? Where’s Michael “It’s never too late to reverese the irreversible!” Mann when you need him?
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I submit the importance of the following research cannot be overstated.
“The new study by Brian Schubert (University of Louisiana at Lafayette) and coauthors Ying Cui and A. Hope Jahren used a novel method to conclude that today’s carbon dioxide (CO2) levels are actually higher than they have been for the past 23 million years. (…) Furthermore, Schubert and colleagues’ new CO2 “timeline” revealed no evidence for any fluctuations in CO2 that might be comparable to the dramatic CO2 increase of the present day, which suggests today’s abrupt greenhouse disruption is unique across recent geologic history. Another point, important to geological readers, is that because major evolutionary changes over the past 23 million years were not accompanied by large changes in CO2, perhaps ecosystems and temperature might be more sensitive to smaller changes in CO2 than previously thought. As an example: The substantial global warmth of the middle Pliocene (5 to 3 million years ago) and middle Miocene (17 to 15 million years ago), which are sometimes studied as a comparison for current global warming, were associated with only modest increases in CO2.”
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-today-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-greater.html
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“Ocean stratification and sea-ice cover in Barents and Kara seas modulate sea-air methane flux: satellite evidence”
https://www.essoar.org/doi/abs/10.1002/essoar.10504047.1?fbclid=IwAR1NV8eqhy6V9ulGlsZ7aNLJebvpfNFUDHyfXduoykWQAxSHdmsM8fuAUYA&#.X0l0RBPYHRA.facebook
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And the news just keeps getting worse from every source I read into. Here…so far no fires though these mountains have been in ‘very high’ and ‘potential catastrophic wildfire danger’ for two months now. Fire bombers (lake scoop planes) going by overhead, distinct engine sounds and they always fly in pairs, but they’ve been heading N/W and I can’t see a smoke plume so I’m assuming the blaze is west across the Columbia River. There is a haze in the sky but light that is from the burns going out west. Sky is mostly normal blue and I can’t smell smoke, been lucky so far this year. And I know it won’t last. That’s the scary part. Too hot too dry to continue the fire breaks I was working on before the heat hit, no rain worth mentioning for two month so the risk of a spark from a chainsaw or mower is too great. Best I can do is the best I can do I guess.
You did read these?
Greenland Succumbs
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/08/19/greenland-succumbs/
Ocean Heat: From the Tropics to the Poles
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/08/04/ocean-heat-from-the-tropics-to-the-poles/
sealintheSelkirks
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[…] is truly terrifying’: Scientists discover ocean waters ‘boiling with methane’ in Arctic Irreversible Runaway Abrupt Climate Change Unfolding Now. Not long off in the future. Seven facts you need to know about the Arctic methane […]
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Some fresh thoughts on methane:
Tiny Bubbles From the Permafrost: An Interview with Ecologist Katey Walter Anthony
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/11/11/tiny-bubbles-from-the-permafrost-an-interview-with-ecologist-katey-walter-anthony/
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Quicker and quicker we swirl around the bowl…
sealintheSelkirks
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No Antarctica in the topic list so I’m pasting this here. About the Thwaites and it is not looking good (but we know that already). This is a pretty comprehensive look for a non-science site as this person does well with the research:
Somewhere on Thwaites Glacier is a fissure so deep that it threatens the world’s coastlines.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/13/2147015/-Somewhere-on-Thwaites-Glacier-is-a-fissure-so-deep-that-it-threatens-the-world-s-coastlines
All sorts of links and satellite images attached in comments, too. Other people are paying attention…but not the politicians, military, or corporate world of course.
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sealintheSelkirks
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This is another one on the Thwaites. There is an excellent yearly satellite view (photos) of the shrinking glacier in this article that boggles the mind how quickly it’s been breaking up.
https://hakaimagazine.com/features/how-we-came-to-know-and-fear-the-doomsday-glacier/
sealintheSelkirks
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This is from 4 years ago but it is still damned relevant to current events obviously.
Just a reminder that this is on-going, and now the talk is all on the ‘pinning’ by underwater mountaintops that’s holding back complete collapse, and just how long those are going to work. From the readings the ‘tone’ is rather dismal.
The moving pic of the glacier into the sea is freaky. A monster avalanche.
Article is from Rolling Stone by Jeff Goodall who was on the ship. It popped up today for some reason and I’m not sure I read anything about this science junket then.
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/journey-to-antarctica-is-this-what-a-climate-catastrophe-looks-like-in-real-time?utm_source=pocket-newtab
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sealintheSelkirks
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This storm, tropical cyclone Freddy, is about to break the record unless it dies running into Africa again. 6 increases? How freaky is that? Talk about runaway climate!
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/8/2157014/-Tropical-Cyclone-Freddy-on-Track-to-Become-Record-Breaking-Storm
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This was the last I heard about it, a week ago.
sealintheSelkirks
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AMOC continues to scare the pee out of people. Now it could go even faster than expected…
Extreme Climate Impacts From Collapse of a Key Atlantic Ocean Current Could be Worse Than Expected, a New Study Warns
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09022024/climate-impacts-from-collapse-of-atlantic-meridional-overturning-current-could-be-worse-than-expected/
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Selkirk Range weather:
About 6cm of snow two days ago, and yesterday was a brilliant blue sky with a glaringly bright sun beaming down that felt quite warm on the arms standing in a south-facing window…too warm, at least for mid-February in these mountains. Except for the windchill, and when in the shade. Still wearing coats unless one keeps moving. Thermometer hits 5-6C by afternoon, -10C last night. snow disappeared except for under trees by today. Valleys below are completely bare.
Pretty messed up here, Kevin.
sealintheSelkirks
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Fucking Stefan Rahmsdorf, he always understates the predicament. He won’t admit he’s completely underestimated climate sensitivity!
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Getting ready for this summer here in the PacNW is going to be a bit problematical I think, but at least some government entities are thinking about it. A quote from the article below:
“The 2021 heat dome is not expected in any given summer, but we need to be prepared for it in every given summer,” Schwandt said.
YA THINK?
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That was when my thermometer showed 48.88889’C. Over the border it hit 50’C and immediately burned to the ground the mountain town of Lytton, BC.
Oh isn’t this great news! It looks like this monster El Nino is going to just swing right into a La Nina pattern without hardly any time in the ‘neutral’ position; right back to the last three summers one of which absolutely boggled my mind with that 48.88889C temp that felt like my brain was going to cook, and killed the old girl husky dog. So if it’s back to La Nina, can I expect those kind of temperatures again? The heat hits hard in June now, instead of July & August like it used to completely bypassing the ‘normal’ last frost that always happened in that month. Big sigh.
But this from the Canadian Tyee.ca news site:
It’s Official. Climate Change Has Brought Deadly Health Risks to BC
https://thetyee.ca/News/2024/02/14/Climate-Change-Deadly-Health-Risks-BC/
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sealintheSelkirks
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It’s loose! The largest iceberg on the planet is heading for the sea lanes:
World’s largest iceberg on the move after dislodging from ocean floor
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How does one avoid an iceberg bigger than the state of Rhode Island especially when you are out at sea at night? How do whales get around it? I mean, how long would it take somebody to hike across this monster on foot? I guess a smart person would not attempt it if they had any brains at all… It would be crampon and ice axes the entire way.
Until, of course, it rolled over when enough melted off the keel!
sealintheSelkirks
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